I have been watching what the disaster recovery industry has been offering in the market place for over 10 years.  I have seen how the industry has evolved from the early days when computer consultants would fasten together their own data backup solutions with duct tape and bailing wire to the point when the first products were offered by IT Vendors through the channel.   For much of this history there has been relatively little technology advancement as many vendors would simply ‘borrow’ their core technology and the only enhancements they would make was to their sales and marketing.  However, this is all about to change as a new disaster recovery juggernaut has entered the fray and has awakened this sleepy industry from it’s doldrums.  Axcient has literally built a better mouse trap and outdone their competitors at every level but how can this impact your IT marketing? (more…)

One of the basic questions that a computer business owners has to struggle to decide how to handle in their sales and marketing process is how long their managed services contracts should be for.  For many different reasons many techs have decided that the ideal length that a agreement should be for is around 3 years.  One of the factors driving that decision is that many consultants are offering hardware-as-a-services and they feel that since they are including new hardware that this requires a long term agreement.  The big question that still remains though is what is the ideal length of a contract that you should be trying to sell?  If you’re doing aggressive IT marketing then this might affect your decision since you need to get a ROI from your investment!

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If you’re running a successful computer business then you’ve probably hooked up with an Remote Management Monitoring [ RMM ] Tool by now.  Early on in the inception of the managed services industry most businesses were terrified of offering a flat fee for on-site emergency support for fear that they would lose tons of money.  This is when a few technology pioneers stepped in to offer some assistance to help stabilize the end users network so that it would be possible for tech guys to make a profit.  While many of these tools were crude they did help stabilize the network.  Now fast-forward to today and many IT guys are still clinging to these same stone age RMM Vendors.  However, there is a better way on the horizon to make RMM tools easier and even more powerful than you can image!

I describe some RMM tools as being in the stone age because I have heard some horror stories from some computer consultants that, even after four years of using one of these tools their right brained tech people, still never figured out completely how to use the software to it’s full potential. (more…)

Computer business owners shouldn’t have the same view of change that the Highway Department does!  We couldn’t say that the Highway Dept. is exactly proactive when it comes to predicating problems that could cause the loss of human life.  When it comes to issues like obstructions to the visibility of warning signs or problems with streets that have no barriers between them etc…  What exactly is the view shared by most Highway Departments?  They wait for the dead bodies to pile up and then they send out an engineer to study the situation to see if they can make changes that will increase the safety of the roadways.  Many IT professionals view changes to their services delivery model the same way as the Highway Department.  They wait for the ‘dead bodies’ to pile up also, meaning they will wait for the loss of market share before they change.   (more…)

I used this plain dull picture to the right for a very specific  reason! I have seen this pic on tons of managed services providers websites and I think it illustrates exactly the point I will be trying to bring out in this blog.  The reality is that the market is becoming over saturated with computer consultants offering the exact same model.  The chant of being proactive has just become background ‘noise’ as every other technology provider has joined this marketing chorus.   The problem is that most IT firms would rather have a hole in their heads before even thinking about evolving their model.  This problem is compounded when you realize that they are all getting marketing advice from the same advisers, so when they do try to differentiate they just end up barely keeping up.  Therefore how could you possibly increase your market share dramatically enough to make Millions with the exact same offer everybody else has?

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I woke up one night with a debilitating headache and went scrambling into the medicine cabinet looking for some Aspirin.  After ruffling through different bottles I finally grabbed the Aspirin.  It wasn’t a brand that I was familiar with so I needed to look for the direction to make sure I was going to take the right amount.   With my headache pounding so bad I can barely see straight, I begun to search the bottle for the directions.  This particular brand had a fold out ‘tiny’ print brochure that was incomprehensible and made it very difficult to find the directions .  It was at this moment that I thought, “Aren’t the directions the most important thing that 90% of the people reading this want to know?”  To add insult to injury we can safely assume that the majority of the people trying to search for the directions have a headache like myself.  Next I wondered why the Aspirin manufacturers hadn’t decided to make the directions the largest writing and in bold and prominently displayed to make it easier to find?   How could my late night headache possible help computer business owners who are marketing IT services?  Also you might ask yourself what could this possibly have to do with improving my marketing agreements?

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Recently I was searching for some awards to motivate my IT telemarketing staff because I know that giving out awards to workers that generate the most IT sales leads will help boast production.  As I was thinking about where I could get some trophies, I remembered a store that wasn’t too far from our office.  I drove to the store and as I was walking up I noticed that there were locks on the door and a sign that said, “Store closed by Land Lord.”  I was really concerned because I didn’t want to order online and this was the only store I could remember.  I quickly checked google and was excited to learn that there was another Trophy Shop close by and so I headed there.  When I located the other store and walked through the doors, I was surprised by the scene as compared to the closed shop, customers were coming and going, orders were being taken, orders were being picked up etc…  What really aroused my curiosity about the stark difference between the two shows was that their inventory looked the exact same and the closed store even had a better location.  What would cause one store to close while the other, with the exact same inventory and similar location, to prosper?  What in the world does this question have to do with marketing IT services?

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Sometimes computer business owners can be their own worst enemy, when it comes to marketing their company in general or more specifically when they are trying to utilize a telemarketing service.  We don’t want to beat a dead horse about the differences between top of mind leads and latent needs prospects; but this old issue just keeps cropping up and hurting the chances of IT services sales people from closing latent needs opportunities.  The issue here is that when you have a marketing  prospect that has a top of mind need or is very needy then getting them to give you total access to their network for a network analysis is pretty easy to do.  However, the exact opposite is true when you’re meeting with a prospect that only has latent needs.  Then your chances of getting them to let you have total access to their network passwords and servers is slim to none!  The problem is that if you’re hung up on getting a network analysis before moving on to the proposal phase and you can’t get the network analysis scheduled, then you’re going to waste precious time and allow the lead to slip through your fingers. So the question really is how do we know that it is difficult to get a latent needs prospect to give you access, so you can get the network analysis and why could it kill your opportunities?

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As an IT automation framework, Kaseya permits IT computer services consultants to proactively maintain, manage and monitor distributed technology infrastructures efficiently, easily and remotely with a single integrated web related platform.

By offering computer consultants an integrated and complete view of environments from the centralized web related management console, the IT automation framework of Kaseya streamlines a scalable and consistent process of managed services. (more…)

From my experience of data loss and recovery, irrespective of whether it is a system failure, catastrophic disaster or virus, data is always at high risk.  Cornerstone has finally offered a better option  to the BDR backup system.  This offering will give computer consultants a better shot at reaching more prospects though their marketing.  Bottom line, Cornerstone’s technology is a hardware solutions that can backup both Windows Servers and Linux Servers!
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